Main menu

You are here

Former Kadena worker reveals gruesome details of Okinawan woman’s death

News

From Stripes.com

This photo of Kenneth Franklin Gadson from a family photo album was provided by his attorney, Toshimitsu Takaesu. The former Marine is accused of raping and killing a local Okinawan woman last year.

Former Kadena worker reveals gruesome details of Okinawan woman’s death

by: Matthew M. Burke and Chiyomi Sumida | .

Stars and Stripes | .

published: February 14, 2017

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A former U.S. base worker charged with raping and killing an Okinawan woman fantasized about raping women for years and thought about shooting fellow Marines as a way of attempting suicide, his lawyer said.

Former Marine Kenneth Franklin Gadson made the revelations, including gruesome details of the crime, during a jailhouse interview with his lawyers. The transcripts were released to Stars and Stripes under the condition that they not be released in their entirety.

Gadson, who worked at a Kadena Air Base cable and internet company and went by his Japanese wife’s surname of Shinzato, has been charged with murder, rape resulting in death and the illegal disposal of a body in the death of Rina Shimabukuro, 20, who disappeared April 28.

Gadson was interrogated two months later when police said he confessed to the crime. He then took police to her body in a heavily wooded area.

The crime shocked Japan and led to a surge in anti-American sentiment on Okinawa, home to about 30,000 U.S. troops.